Controversy ferments over trashed ACORN papers

Two months after being sucked into scandal by an undercover camera crew, local ACORN employees are caught in a new controversy over their office trash.

The dispute surfaced yesterday but started six weeks ago, on the night of Oct. 9. That’s when private investigator Derrick Roach says he loaded 12 or more trash bags from ACORN’s Dumpster into his Chevrolet Suburban.

At a news conference, Roach and county Republican Party Chairman Tony Krvaric blasted the low-income advocacy group for tossing into those bags thousands of pages containing the personal information of employees, members and clients.

Krvaric called it “a massive data breach, at the very least, of individuals who have come to ACORN for help and assistance.” He said ACORN’s failure to protect or shred the documents “is an absolute affront to every San Diegan.”

ACORN spokeswoman Amy Schur in turn criticized Roach. Schur accused him of stealing the documents and said a police report was being filed. She apologized for how ACORN mishandled sensitive information but demanded he return it swiftly.

She said ACORN officials were discussing their options and their potential liability with a number of lawyers.

Both Roach and Schur said they had contacted the District Attorney’s Office. Roach said he forwarded the office documents to review. Schur said ACORN alerted the office “to the fact they were illegally obtained.”

A spokeswoman with the District Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

Schur, ACORN’s head organizer in California, said the office cleaning was done to make room for a phone bank outreach program and that most of the paper tossed was outdated voter lists, leaflets and newsletters.

She acknowledged that some documents were “handled very sloppily” and said that when she had more information she would decide if staffers would face any repercussions.

Roach, a Republican whose run for the 79th Assembly seat held by Mary Salas fell well short last year, said he was driving home to Chula Vista on Oct. 9 when on a whim he stopped by the ACORN offices on West 35th Street.

He said he saw people discarding excessive amounts of trash in an unlocked bin and decided to return that night to inspect it.

Roach drove past a “No trespassing” sign to get to the trash, but said yesterday that when documents like the ones in question get mixed with garbage, they are “public domain.”

“It almost seems like it was divine intervention,” he said.

Yesterday, Roach and Krvaric made public a few documents containing a job applicant’s Social Security and driver’s license numbers and the voided check of an ACORN member.

Since taking the trash, Roach said he has been hired by people who “have political interests” to examine its contents closely. He declined to disclose his clients.

At their news conference, Roach and Krvaric questioned the timing of ACORN’s “document dump.” They noted it took place six days before investigators with the Attorney General’s Office met with ACORN employees to discuss inappropriate comments an activist secretly recorded. The comments were aired on TV in September, causing a national stir.

State Attorney General Jerry Brown, a Democrat, is considered a top candidate for governor but has not formally entered the race. Yesterday, Krvaric called Brown’s ACORN investigation into question and said Brown “is clearly not doing his job as attorney general.”